Representatives of Britain’s rural community are growing increasingly concerned at the glorification of the rising levels of violence between the nation’s bird and pig communities through the graphically realistic iPhone game ‘Angry Birds’. The Minister for Agriculture has now spoken out to condemn the game maker’s ‘unconscionable exploitation’ of an isolated spate of egg-stealing by a small antisocial porcine minority, and the accompanying wave of vigilante reprisals inflicted by swiftly-organised bird groups.

While the conflict at the heart of the best-selling app is recognised as being true to life, the scale of the retribution as depicted in the battlefield simulation game has been for many, hard to swallow. ‘We knew the local pigs were no angels, and a bit of aggro by lads with catapults was probably inevitable’ said a witness to a recent ‘birding’, ‘But this game with what look like suicide cocks blowing themselves up in densely populated pens? It’s just bound to encourage the radicalising of some of the more easily influenced fledglings around here.’

‘If they were my eggs, I’d be angry too, frankly,’ admitted Devon Chief Constable Steven Otter. ‘But you have to remember that these knee-jerk reprisals indiscriminately target pigs regardless of actual guilt, and what might seem a harmless game is spilling over in real-life into the realm of hate crime. My officers are keen to assist, and if any egg thefts are reported, they will be scrambled immediately.’

But while the authorities have railed against the use of the escalating cycle of tit-for-tat crime and violence for entertainment purposes, sociologists have praised the game for its realistic portrayal of the life of the increasingly demonised porcine community. ‘Whenever you get two disparate groups sharing the same space, there are going to be cultural misunderstandings, racial tension and widespread egg theft,’ explained Brian Renfrew of the University of Surrey, ‘But you have to look at the conditions these so-called ‘pigs’ face. They live huddled together in some of the most unsafe housing we’ve ever seen — many reside in rickety wooden structures, often with the constant threat of large rocks balanced precariously above them, or lethal crates of explosive underfoot — no wonder many are quite literally green with stress.’

Chief Constable Otter remains confident however that if members of the feuding communities represented in the game can be brought together, understanding can be reached. ‘I won’t be satisfied until I can bring both sides together round the table,’ he explained. ‘There’s nothing here that can’t be sorted out over a full English breakfast…’